True Crime: Streets of L.A.

The streets of LA beckon, but is this police quest a unique adventure, or just the Grandest clone of them all? Read Review

Experience the hard-boiled life of a Los Angeles city cop, and choose to either uphold the law or take it into your own hands. True Crime: Streets of LA puts players in the role of LA cop Nick Kang on missions to take down major crime syndicates. True Crime recreates a 400 mile area of bustling Los Angeles California cityscape, where players will be able to freely roam, or take on missions that span from trendy Santa Monica to the gritty streets of Hollywood. True Crime also features deep "bullet-time" shootouts, and martial arts battles.

Latest Articles for True Crime: Streets of L.A.

Jeff Lander, a programmer at developer Luxoflux responsible for True Crime: Streets of L.A., hosted a lecture at GDC 2004 covering techniques used to map and recreate the city of Los Angeles digitally for use in the game. In addition, the developers attempted to realistically emulate the behaviors of the city's population and traffic. The game's success relies heavily on the randomly automated reactions and behaviors of innocent bystanders, adherence to traffic rules and boundaries, and a complete rendition and mapping of the entire city. Read More »

Boot up True Crime, and the first voice you hear is that of Christopher Walken. Is this the tough police chief, or maybe the bullet-riddled gangster that you'll take down in a climactic scene? No, this is George, the old coot that runs the police shooting range. The second thing you'll notice is a great similarity to GTA. But don't be fooled. Sure, there's a lot of free-roaming action, but True Crime merely takes GTA as a starting point, fully coming into it's own by the time it's all over. Read More »

It's fascinating to watch game developers borrow and build upon what they consider the best aspects of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. The Getaway, written by would-be moviemakers, ramped up the cinematic aspects waaaay too much; The Simpsons Hit & Run, written by the same staff as the TV show, ratcheted up the sharp satire for which GTA3 and VC never get enough credit. Read More »

Smart people tell me that video games are cyclical and hit-driven. In other words, one company will score a hit, and then half a dozen others rush to capitalize on it while the idea's still hot. That's usually not a recipe for quality gaming. Oddly enough, the fallout from Rockstar's giga-hit Grand Theft Auto III has spawned relatively few imitators, and what few there are have been surprisingly good. SCEI's The Getaway was first out of the gate, and while it was flawed in many ways, it could still make a strong case for its artistic merit, particularly in the movie-like cutscenes. Next up in this budding sub-genre will be Activision's True Crime: Streets of L.A. Much like The Getaway, True Crime is turning out to be more than just a banal GTA3 rip-off. And, thankfully, it looks like it'll be a heck of a lot more fun than Sony's troubled effort.
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